Happy Birthday, Clyde

from The Mott Hall School

Dear Clyde Tombaugh,

We are writing to wish you a happy birthday! We, class 802, of the Mott
Hall School, IS 223, in Manhattan, New York City, have been studying about
our solar system. We have participated in the discussions of the Live
From the Hubble Space Telescope project and voted first for Pluto as the
planet we would like to study. After one of the members of the discussion
group wrote about your birthday, we read about your struggle to find Professor
Lowell's Planet X. We would sincerely like to congratulate you for two
things; first for the discovery, with your colleagues, of Pluto. This
marked a dramatic event in the old but also young era of exploration and
investigation. Your efforts, along with countless other stargazers, over
centuries of observations, have added to the understanding that the cosmos
is a big place, detail by detail. But you had a special destiny to be
one of a small group of people to make a big contribution to the quest
for a better understanding of our world and the realms of the space beyond.
From what we read, we found out that you were special because you never
gave up, even after years of disappointment and hardly any money. So you
are a role model for investigators who have come after you, including
us young investigators. Someday we hope to reach our goals, just as you
did.

We also want to congratulate you for your 90th birthday! At first, we
thought that all the planets were discovered hundreds of years ago. Our
class was extremely surprised to find out that someone in the history
books still lives. Well, we were wrong!! We think you definitely deserve
more attention. Therefore, we are here to tell you that we really adore
you. Thank you for your dedication to the science of astronomy.

Respectfully,
The Students of Class 802
and Mrs. Herzog, Our Teacher
The Mott Hall School